


You Painted Me Golden

by Kieran (Ameenjouee)



Category: DCU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:49:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23620345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ameenjouee/pseuds/Kieran
Summary: They’d been doomed from the start. Jason had known that.
Relationships: Kyle Rayner/Jason Todd
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	You Painted Me Golden

They first met after Jason had become Red Hood, which meant a couple different things. 

First and foremost, it meant there was no previous expectation to live up to with Kyle. Everything was new, to be taken completely at face value. 

And in a way, that was scarier than if there had been past knowledge to live up to, because Jason hadn’t been just himself in so long that he wasn’t sure he knew how to be that person anymore. 

The other thing it meant was that they were absolutely doomed from the very start, and Jason knew that. 

His reputation as Red Hood, what he did, it would get in the way eventually. 

It always would, it was just a fact of life these days. 

But Kyle refused to hear that out. 

No, even the parts of himself that Jason hated were eventually both weaselled out into the light of day and treated as something special and worthy of love. 

It had to be the artist in Kyle that caused it, because he was sure no one else could see how messy, how damaged he was and treat it as a work of art. 

No one else was that delusional. 

Once they’d gotten together, lazy nights tangled on one of their couches or beds became a regular occurrence. 

Occasionally, these nights were chatter-filled, bad remarks and laughter filling the still quiet of whoever’s apartment they were in. 

But most nights, it was comfortable silence, music on softly in the background as Jason read or Kyle drew - a desperate plea not to be alone mixed with an ease that never existed outside the safety of the apartment walls. 

Tonight, Kyle had spent a good two and a half hours arguing because he’d gotten new paints and had wanted to test them out. 

Had it been anyone else, the request to sit shirtless, scars on display, so he could be someone’s canvas would have been answered with threats and violence. 

But it was nothing Kyle hadn’t seen before. And so, Jason had eventually caved, discomfort balanced precariously against the wonder of seeing the Lantern in his element. 

_ In his element _ had given way to blooming color covering the scars that Jason kept hidden from the world in short order. 

Somehow, looking down where he used to see his scars to see them being turned into just another detail of a story in a painting had loosened a knot in his chest that he’d been carrying since he had come back to life. 

He never said anything to Kyle about it, but it had been the last time he’d argued when Kyle got in a mood to use him as a canvas. 

Outside of the walls of their apartments, it was rare they managed a conversation without a snide remark or twenty passing between them. These times were where Jason felt most at home - words were his strong point, where Kyle had moments where he struggled to make a comeback quickly enough to pass. 

It probably wasn’t a good thing to have such a strong feeling of pride about leaving his partner tongue tied for anything along the lines of an argument, but it was hard not to be proud with the way it drew a pout out of Kyle. 

Those moments, in Jason’s opinion, were the most real times he got from the artist. 

There was no way to twist any of those moments into something more than they were, they had to be taken at face value, and that was how he dealt his hands. 

Not that he didn’t notice that Kyle would pick these arguments more often once it had registered how happy they left Jason feeling - only if it wasn’t a real fight, neither of them walked away from those without hurt feelings and bruised egos and a promise to never speak to the other again that was washed away within the day solely because they’d grown used to their safe spaces being with the other after having intertwined themselves so naturally, so thoroughly in the other’s space and life. 

When people started piecing them together, Jason thought for sure that was the beginning of the end. 

At first, it wasn’t important. Some barista at a coffee shop that they’d stopped at on a whim because there was no way they were about to get through the evening without caffeine saw them holding hands, saw Kyle sneak a kiss to one of the scars that decorated Jason’s cheek. Jason had just stared when he noticed the attention on them, and had refused to touch the other for the rest of the night, fears and insecurities dancing around in his brain turning him downright cold. 

But next, it was Hal Jordan learning, and once that happened, the entire Lantern Corps knew, and the JLA was informed in short order. 

Kyle had been the one to react to that, a show of rare, true anger arriving as he paced angrily around Jason’s living room, phone in his hand on on speaker with Hal on the other end, words coming out with more vitrol than Jason had ever heard from the usually friendly hero. 

He hadn’t known it had meant that much to him, the comfort they’d built up of this just being  _ their  _ thing.

He learned after the call had ended and the anger had given way to fear in a way that Jason knew he’d never seen on  _ any _ of the Lanterns that Kyle held the same insecure fear that once people found out, the universe would find a way to take it away from him. 

Being known in this kind of familiar way was terrifying on its own, and Jason had just held Kyle until the other had fallen asleep, even if sleep didn’t come to him that night. 

By the time Jason’s family had all found out, he really thought they’d made it through the absolute worst the universe could throw at them. 

Especially seeing as his family found out while Kyle was off-world. And boy, that had been an interesting conversation when he’d had to turn down the invite to a family dinner to  _ meet the boyfriend _ . 

Kyle had laughed until he couldn’t breathe when Jason had told him the day he came home, and Jason had never been more in love with the man than he was as he sat there, legs tangled with Kyle’s and the other in borrowed clothes. 

They did get roped into that dinner, and a week later found Kyle doing his best to charm the other Bats into liking him enough not to threaten him. 

Jason didn’t have the heart to tell him that they likely wouldn’t bother anyway. 

He was proven wrong when, as they went to leave, an even  _ keep in mind, there’s nowhere you can run that we can’t find you if you hurt him _ came up. 

Kyle had stared before turning to look at Jason as if it were the best thing in the entire world to happen - proceeding to spend the ride back to Jason’s apartment talking his ear off about how that meant approval and for once, Jason couldn’t bring himself to think the worst. 

The whispers started shortly after that, and Jason had known they were coming but nothing in the world could have prepared him for the genuine hatred Kyle’s voice held as he spewed some of the remarks back to him late one night in the midst of torn canvases and broken pencils and spilled paint. 

And that anger only got worse when he didn’t respond, he knew. Kyle hadn’t taken well to the indifference he treated it with, but honesty wasn’t a fix in this situation. 

They both knew it. 

The true beginning of the end came when  _ Kyle _ started becoming apathetic to the remarks. 

Jason could return, covered in blood and smelling of gunpowder, and Kyle’s only reaction would be to point him to a shower and silently patch any injury he found up. 

The silence was never a good sign with Kyle, and Jason had long since stopped asking after it.

It had stopped doing him any good months ago. 

And with that, things shifted. 

The companionable nights they’d shared became tension filled, and Kyle withdrew so quickly that it left Jason reeling in a way he wasn’t sure he ever had. 

It wasn’t that the love they’d become rather addicted to had died, it was just that, with so many people taking all the good they’d had and twisting it, they couldn’t see it any other way. 

They’d been doomed from the start.

Jason had known that. 

But he’d never imagined in a million lifetimes that he’d want it back, that he’d want to redo it regardless of how it ended. 

And he never thought, not for a second, that the end wouldn’t come because of his reputation, but because of some misplaced need to protect them both from the aftermath of fights that had become too commonplace in the light of having to share that part of who they were with other people. 


End file.
